In Centinela Valley, Another School Secession Effort Brews

School secession fever is running high in a cluster of communities southeast of Los Angeles International Airport.

Community leaders in two of the four elementary districts that make up the troubled Centinela Valley Union High School District are launching petition drives, initial steps in a long and arduous process they hope will enable them one day to leave the district and add ninth through 12th grades to their own educational programs.

Organizers in the adjoining Wiseburn and Hawthorne school districts are attempting what is known in education parlance as unification, one of several forms of school district reorganization attempts underway in the Los Angeles area in the quest for stronger local control and better schools.

“It really comes down to our wanting the right to determine the best way to educate our high school students,” said John R. Peterson, one of three Wiseburn School District parents leading the unification effort. “It’s a sincere effort to provide better and safer schools for our kids.”

“People are just fed up with the overcrowding at Hawthorne High,” said Nilo Michelin of the Committee for Better Hawthorne Schools, which is leading the petition drive there. Saying that the high school district suffers from low test scores and high faculty turnover, Michelin said, “People want a bigger say in their kids’ education.”

The Citizens for a Wiseburn Unified School District will kick off its signature-gathering drive at 7:30 tonight at Dana Middle School.

Hawthorne unification leaders have been collecting signatures for more than a week. Both groups need signatures from at least 25% of their district’s registered voters--about 1,800 in Wiseburn and about 7,000 in the larger Hawthorne School District.

But the signature drives are just the beginning. Strong opposition to the secession movements has already surfaced in the high school district, and officials of the two other elementary “feeder” districts--Lennox and Lawndale--worry about problems the proposed secessions, especially Hawthorne’s, could create for the students left behind. For example, would the remaining district be too small to offer a variety of programs?

State law prohibits changes that would produce a financially shaky new district--or harm an existing one. Once signatures are verified by county officials, detailed scrutiny of the proposed reorganization begins, first by the county Committee on School District Organization, then by state education officials.

The State Board of Education then holds a public hearing and decides whether a proposal meets several conditions--from racial balance to the quality of educational programs--and therefore can be submitted to voters.

The state board also makes the key decision about who can vote. Should it be just those in the Hawthorne and Wiseburn school districts, or the entire high school district? Voter approval is the final hurdle. A simple majority is needed for passage.

Even when it moves swiftly, the process can take years. And other secession efforts are underway.

In Carson, just a few miles away from Centinela Valley, community leaders in March won permission to hold an election this November on their plan to break away from the Los Angeles Unified School District and create a 21,500-student Carson Unified School District.

But a 14-year effort to break away from the Los Angeles system failed two years ago in nearby Lomita when the state board refused to allow an election there, saying the proposed 2,000-student Lomita district would upset the racial balance of the area’s schools and disrupt educational programs.

In the San Fernando Valley, a much bigger move to carve two new districts--of 100,000 students each--from the Los Angeles system is awaiting a hearing before the state board. County education officials have recommended against the two districts. After several postponements, hearings on those plans are scheduled for October.

Consensus Unlikely in Affected Districts

Locally at least, efforts to add high school programs to existing elementary districts have fared better than those to carve entire new districts from existing ones.

In 1992, for example, the elementary districts for Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach each unified, a move that led to the dissolution of the South Bay Union High School District.

But the beach cities’ unifications were done with consensus among all affected districts, something that is far from likely in the Centinela Valley.

“I would like someone to show me just how these other districts are going to do a better job than we do, how they are going to be able to attract tenured teachers and offer the wide range of programs and classes that we do,” said Ernie Chacon, president of Centinela Valley’s Board of Education.

Chacon said the district’s political and financial turmoil, which sparked widespread dissatisfaction among the four feeder districts, is over. He also cited efforts underway to improve school facilities and test scores (which remain low) and head off the racial strife that has racked the district’s high schools in the past.

Chacon predicted that the unification leaders will have little trouble getting enough signatures, but he expects that their plans will not stand up to scrutiny by county and state officials.

The Lennox and Lawndale school district boards have not yet taken positions on the secession movements. However, the superintendents of those districts said they have concerns, especially since the departure of both Wiseburn and Hawthorne would leave a geographically bifurcated district with far fewer students.

“If people feel the high school district is not meeting the needs, then it would be appropriate to design a K-12 plan--but not at the expense of the neighboring districts,” Lawndale Supt. Joseph D. Condon said.

Bruce McDaniel, superintendent of the Lennox School District, said he is especially concerned that the Hawthorne proposal would evict Lennox students, mostly from immigrant Latino families, from Hawthorne High and force them to attend Lawndale or Leuzinger high school, both of which are farther from their homes.

“We had thought they were going to work with us, but there is nothing in place for that in their proposal,” McDaniel said. If the proposal gets past the signature stage, the Lennox district certainly will weigh in, he said.

Michelin, of the Committee for Better Hawthorne Schools, said his group tried to work out a solution for high school-bound Lennox students. But it stopped when efforts failed and Hawthorne leaders realized “we can’t tell Lennox what to do. . . . We decided it would be best just to go ahead on our own.”

Michelin said he has found a lot of enthusiasm for adding a high school to the 9,600-student Hawthorne school system, the largest of the districts feeding the 6,800-student Centinela high school district.

Michelin said his group is using both volunteers and paid signature gatherers. It has established a Web site, https://www.betterhawthorneschools.com, to help spread the word and raise money. Although there is no time limit, the group hopes to submit its signatures to the county by the end of October.

The departure of the close-knit, 1,700-student Wiseburn district would have considerably less impact than that of Hawthorne, all the parties agree. All but about 50 Wiseburn graduating eighth-graders per year already go elsewhere for high school, either to private campuses or to other public high schools nearby. And Wiseburn proposes taking no high school district property with it.

But Wiseburn leaders still need to decide whether they would open their own high school, make room for the higher grades on its middle-school campus or try to negotiate attendance agreements with neighboring districts.

“We have several options, and I am sure we can work something out. The main thing now is to get the signatures,” said Tony Nakamura, another of the unification leaders.

Unification leaders hope to collect twice the required number of signatures and submit them to the county by the end of September, an ambitious undertaking.

One of the oldest districts in the area, Wiseburn takes its name from a long-dismantled railroad depot that served as its first classroom. It straddles three communities--western Hawthorne, the unincorporated county neighborhood of Del Aire and eastern El Segundo, which has lots of commerce and industry but no residents.

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Redistricting Plans

Community leaders in two of four elementary school districts that are located within the boundaries of Centinela Valley Union High School District have launched drives to secede from it. Wiseburn and Hawthorne would become districts of kindergarten through 12th grade.